regex question

i am trying to create a regular expression that says the following:

allow any number for the first 6 digits. after that, do not allow any character besides a '.' and after that, allow 2 digits of any number. so, in other words, i want to allow a maximum of 6 digits followed by a maximum of 2 decimal places. my current regular expression doesn't work, but it goes as follows:

"[0-9]{0," + MAX_INTEGER_PRECISION + "}[\\.]{0,1}[0-9]{0," + MAX_DECIMAL_PRECISION + "}"

any idea where i went wrong here?

Quote:

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any idea where i went wrong here?

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You didn't tell us where MAX_INTEGER_PRECISION and MAX_DECIMAL_PRECISION came from.

You didn't post sample inputs along with mentioning whether they should be matched or not

You didn't post a SSCCE
SSCCE : Java Glossary

You said "doesn't work" which is meaningless without clarifying exactly what result you got.

db

Your example regex I believe does what it's supposed to. Maybe your problem is somewhere else. Here is what I got when testing:

Code:

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import java.util.regex.Pattern;
public class Test {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    int MAX_INTEGER_PRECISION = 6, MAX_DECIMAL_PRECISION = 2;
    String justRight = "1234.1", tooLong = "1234567.123", noDecimal = "12345", noNums = "abc.ef";
    String regex = "[0-9]{0," + MAX_INTEGER_PRECISION + "}[\\.]{0,1}[0-9]{0," + MAX_DECIMAL_PRECISION + "}";
    Pattern p = Pattern.compile(regex);
    System.out.println("Just right matches? : " + p.matcher(justRight).matches());
    System.out.println("Too long matches? : " + p.matcher(tooLong).matches());
    System.out.println("No decimal matches? : " + p.matcher(noDecimal).matches());
    System.out.println("No numbers matches? : " + p.matcher(noNums).matches());
  }
}

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Output:
Just right matches? : true
Too long matches? : false
No decimal matches? : true
No numbers matches? : false

thanks for taking the time to check this out. hmmm it certainly is possible the error is elsewhere. my coworker and i spent a lot of time just staring at that string and trying to figure out where we went wrong, but obviously we couldn't. i'll check out other areas of the code and see what i can see.

I have tested

[0-9]{0,3}[\.]{0,1}[0-9]{0,4}

here, it really works exactly as required in the initial posting (assuming the given values for the constants). Your regular expression is correct.

i see. in that case you are right, it must be a problem somewhere else in my code.